Hacker News: was_a_dev

New comment by was_a_dev in "The EU is about to sell our most sensitive data to the US for visa-free travel"

was_a_dev — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 06:59:49 +0000

Biometric data in UK passports is nothing more than the digital storage of the information in your passport (name, age, passport number, facial photo). The UK government does not collect any additional data

New comment by was_a_dev in "The EU is about to sell our most sensitive data to the US for visa-free travel"

was_a_dev — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 13:24:18 +0000

As an aside, I always find it amusing that as a British person that have visited both the US and the Schengen area since the new entry/exit system. Both the US and EU have taken my biometric information (i.e fingerprints) but the UK government has not.

New comment by was_a_dev in "New era for Gibraltar with removal of border controls with Spain"

was_a_dev — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:58:02 +0000

What a brilliantly depressing graphic

New comment by was_a_dev in "New era for Gibraltar with removal of border controls with Spain"

was_a_dev — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:42:37 +0000

> freedom of movement to the EU (that the British hated so much)

A generalisation that only applied to, at most, 52% of the voting British public

New comment by was_a_dev in "Show HN: I'm making a detective game built on Wikipedia"

was_a_dev — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 09:10:34 +0000

I played the Map mode and got the same page several times, and then the game ended with half my "life" left. It was really fun but I passed a lot of rounds just on memory

New comment by was_a_dev in "German government comes out against Chat Control"

was_a_dev — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 07:46:04 +0000

There were reasons, they just weren't good ones

New comment by was_a_dev in "Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?"

was_a_dev — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 10:30:08 +0000

Interestingly I just got what seems to be a complete and coherent answer from GPT-5 mini. No refusal, many steps given

New comment by was_a_dev in "Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers"

was_a_dev — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 15:18:56 +0000

Free to US citizens would be a better policy, the state investing in its own people.

New comment by was_a_dev in "Ocean Carbon Removal: Captura's marine carbon capture explained"

was_a_dev — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 21:33:23 +0000

The idea (in theory being the key word) is by injecting into the stratosphere minimises acid rain production and maximises cooling requiring less SO2

New comment by was_a_dev in "Universities enrolling foreign students with poor English, BBC finds"

was_a_dev — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 11:27:57 +0000

In this context, its not so much the prejudice but the exploitation of such students and the devaluation of the degree as a result.

New comment by was_a_dev in "Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]"

was_a_dev — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 07:43:04 +0000

The most challenging axis in my opinion is the roll axis of Super Heavy, if there is a roll angle error, the pins could not sit properly on the chopsticks and the whole booster slides off.

New comment by was_a_dev in "Britain's last coal-fired power plant shuts down"

was_a_dev — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 08:20:26 +0000

We're not good at building nuclear power stations, partly because we haven't the skilled workforce to do so.

A lot of the (finanical and time) investment for Hinkley Point C has been certifying and upskilling the workforce.

Sizewell C is projected to be a much smoother and 'cheaper' operation, as it is a near clone of HPC. And the timing means the workforce will just transfer over to the new site.

New comment by was_a_dev in "Britain's reliance on coal-fired power set to end after 140 years"

was_a_dev — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 11:16:56 +0000

In the North East of England, theres a point where these houses aren't even worthwhile purchasing to rennovate. Houses can be purchases easily for £60k but require at least that to modernize. But while you've done well to purchase a house for £120k, it doesn't reflect in the local market.

The solution would be to knock the house down and build a modern one on the reclaimed land. But you've just bought a mid-terrace, so that's out of the question.

New comment by was_a_dev in "State of S3 – Your Laptop is no Laptop anymore – a personal Rant"

was_a_dev — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 07:31:57 +0000

I'd say 1/3rd is a rather large chunk of an SSDs TBW if its just for hibernating. In practice, for reasons you outlined, it would be a smaller amount but I would only find 1-2% tolerable.

New comment by was_a_dev in "The waiting time paradox: why is my bus always late? (2018)"

was_a_dev — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 08:52:06 +0000

Being able to track a bus via GPS works well like this. It doens't matter if the bus is 20 minutes late, if you can check that the bus is 4 minutes away.

A bit like usnig the metro. You don't know the schedule, you just know the realative time to the next train

New comment by was_a_dev in "The waiting time paradox: why is my bus always late? (2018)"

was_a_dev — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 08:47:24 +0000

I guess the reality is, as a passenger, you either wait several minutes on the bus at a stop mid-route. Or you wait much longer at a bus stop in a crowd waiting for four buses to show up.

New comment by was_a_dev in "FCC seek comments on NextNav petition for rulemaking on lower 900MHz ISM band"

was_a_dev — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 07:34:12 +0000

99 years or 999 years. AKA a leasehold

New comment by was_a_dev in "It took my savings and 14 years but I’m about to beat arthritis"

was_a_dev — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 10:37:12 +0000

Nothing wrong with paywalled content, given its still accessible. Especially in this case where several archive links have been provided

New comment by was_a_dev in "Türkiye Bans Roblox"

was_a_dev — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 21:01:47 +0000

I'd learn. My capabilities aren't static with time

New comment by was_a_dev in "Shape of Motion: 4D Reconstruction from a Single Video"

was_a_dev — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 13:55:06 +0000

I imagine having stereo video would also help generate a depth map from disparity?